


toki ni wa

by lutzaussi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff, M/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9114514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutzaussi/pseuds/lutzaussi
Summary: Iruka is used to being alone at the end of the year, but maybe it's about time for that old routine to be shaken up.





	

Iruka, for not the first time (and surely not the  _ last _ ), was alone for the week-long span between Christmas and the New Year holidays. He was fine. He’d grown used to being alone after his parents had died and even after years of being a teacher and having a decent social life, he almost preferred to spend the holidays alone. That way he didn’t have to decorate, plan anything, or buy much of anything other than the regular obligatory presents for his fellow teachers and something he would give to Naruto when the boy was still in Konoha.

But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t something bittersweet about the whole thing.

He tried not to think of it that way, while he was shopping and cooking for himself and then after, when he was sitting on his couch with a mug of tea and a blanket and a book. But it was  _ hard _ , especially when he could see the pictures of himself and his parents from where he sat.

The only saving grace was that he had taken a lot of hours at the mission room desk, and pay was double during the holidays because the Hokage always had problems getting workers. Tsunade had almost cried on him when he had taken the hours.

There weren’t many nin out on missions though, so he spent the four days after Christmas in the relative silence of the mission room with only two interruptions, one of them a nin returning from a mission and the other Shizune asking if there were any problems. There were no problems, not until that Friday.

He only had a couple of hours in the morning before Genma took over, and the next five days the office was technically closed for the new year. There were a couple of expected returns, but Iruka knew better than to expect any ninja from Konoha to be on time. Tsunade was always in her office, though.

Iruka was checking the logs when one of the nin they were expecting flickered in. She immediately held out her scroll, but Iruka’s first thought was that she didn’t look to good. He took the scroll and held his hands out in time to catch the woman under her armpits and, saying a silent prayer of thanks that the mission room was otherwise empty, Iruka body-flickered them to the hospital. The instant they appeared a medic nin rushed over to them.

“She collapsed in the mission room,” he explained, and that was enough for the medic, whose hands were lit green where she held the nin.

“Chakra exhaustion. Thank you, Umino-san,” the medic said, slinging one of the unconscious woman’s arms over her shoulder, and she called back, “and happy holidays.”

His chest felt a little weird at that, but he replied, “You too,” before returning to the silence of the mission room.

He was in the middle of filing the scroll that the woman had submitted when somebody appeared in the mission room. Whoever they were, though, they could wait until he finished filing, and they did.

Hatake Kakashi stood in the mission room, a somewhat wild look about him, like he was running from something. “Can I help you, Hatake-san?” Iruka asked, closing the door to the filing room behind him and slipping back behind the desk.

“Oh thank god,” Kakashi said when he saw it was Iruka. “Are there any missions that need to be taken?”

“Uh,” Iruka knew the answer, and knew that it was not an answer the other man would like, “none. The Hokage hasn’t passed any down. Why?”

Kakashi sighed, pressed a thumb to the inner corner of his visible eye as he explained, “Gai has a new year's party every year and…”

“And you don’t want to go,” Iruka could understand. Gai’s parties were, in a word, ambitious. And, in two, a  _ disaster _ . “Why don’t you just tell him you aren’t coming?”

“Once he gets drunk he always finds me and drags me there anyway,” the other man sighed forlornly, dropped his hands and tipped his head to Iruka, “Thank you, anyway.”

“Well, if,” Iruka decided that the next words out of his mouth would likewise be a disaster, but--he considered Kakashi nothing if not a friend, and knew that the other man considered them at least friends as well. “If you need somewhere to go, I’m not doing anything, and I’m fairly sure that Gai doesn’t know where my apartment is.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Kakashi said, but he looked so relieved he probably would’ve hugged Iruka.

“Really, it’s no problem,” Iruka waved a hand, “that’s what friends are for, right?”

A literal smile broke on Kakashi’s face, visible even through his mask. “Thank you. I think I’ll take you up on that.”

Iruka spent the rest of the day freaking out. He didn’t know if he even had enough food for  _ himself _ , let alone another person, and after Genma relieved him Iruka headed home to find that there was enough food, but he still needed to  _ make _ to food.

Kakashi actually coming to his apartment was anticlimactic after that. Any awkwardness that Kakashi might’ve felt at being at Iruka’s apartment probably died when, after he had actually gotten inside the apartment and found Iruka in the kitchen making soba and given him a bag of fresh kaki and mika, a frog flung itself against the window of the living room.

“Um,” Iruka found himself saying, “I think that’s from Naruto.”

“Naruto?” Kakashi asked, striding over to the window to unlock it and pull the frog out of the snow-filled flower box it had fallen into. It squeak-croaked, spat a letter out into Kakashi’s face with a wet splat, and said, “Thank you for savin’ me!”

Kakashi pried the letter off of his face. “It is addressed to you,” he held it out to Iruka, kept the frog in hand so it wouldn’t get underfoot.

“Is he expecting a reply?” Iruka asked of the frog, hooking the ladle he was holding to the pocket of his apron so he could open the letter.

“Nope!” the frog squeaked, slipping out of Kakashi’s hand regardless, and landing with a rather wet slap on the floor. It saluted Iruka, saying, “I’ll be off, then, an’ have a happy new year!”

It plopped back out of the window as they watched, let loose a string of filthy curses from the flower box, and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Iruka snorted and returned to the kitchen, passing the letter to Kakashi, “It’s written to everyone.”

Kakashi read about his former student's no-so-grand escapades on the coast while Iruka finished the soba, and by that time it seemed natural enough for them to sit down and eat together. 

After that Iruka gladly accepted Kakashi’s help to clean up, and then: a project. Namely, putting together the kagami mochi that he had planned to have set up the day before but forgotten about. Kakashi, to Iruka’s surprise, had never had set up anything for the new year, or really celebrated the new year for that matter. So he forced Kakashi to help him set up the kagami mochi in the kamidana, almost on top of the picture of his parents because there wasn’t a whole lot of room.

Kakashi collapsed on the couch after that, citing brain exhaustion.  Iruka had a difficult time believing that Kakashi could ever have brain exhaustion. But he doesn’t say anything other than snort, and go make tea. He returned with a plate of mochi and tea for both of them, and, after some consideration, tossed a blanket at Kakashi’s head, shoved the other man over so they could both sit on the couch, and pulled the plate of mochi onto his lap.

“You know,” Kakashi offered, once they were settled and had their tea, “maybe we should do this every year. You know, so Gai doesn’t stalk me and you don’t have to work at the mission room.”

Maybe Iruka looked at him a little skeptically, but his real motive wasn’t exactly hard to parse and Iruka couldn’t keep a small smile from tugging at his face. But he didn’t say anything, just snorted and ate mochi. It was less than a minute before he looked up again, though, cocking his head when the bells at the shrine up the hill began to ring, loud and clear in the snowy air.

In between what was probably the 100th and the 101st ring Kakashi tugged his mask down, and the instant the 108th rang out he leaned into Iruka and pressed a kiss to the other man’s lips. He moved quickly to pull away, but Iruka grabbed him, and the second kiss was somewhat less chaste than the first.

“You know, I’d be okay with us doing this every year,” Iruka said, once he caught his breath. "I guess it's better than being alone."

Kakashi smirked, and tugged him close for another kiss.


End file.
